arqueete | Dec. 8th, 2007

Excuse me, I'm about to go Phantom geeky.

I was looking at this old archive of PotO cast lists by month for, um, every month ever up until Jan 2007, to figure out when it was that Jeff Keller and George Lee Andrews switched roles as mentioned in the latest [tos] show (it was April 2001, by the way).

In the chat we'd been discussing the Spring Awakening cast changes and why understudies don't usually seem to be promoted to leads ever in shows. Well, looking at these Phantom lists, I'm kind of amazed at how much ensemble members/understudies DO get promoted to leads in Phantom.

LET US EXAMINE THIS

First, the OBC of Phantom. January 1988. These are just the names I recognize offhand:

Monsieur André ... Cris Groenendaal <-- Would become Phantom March 1989
Porter/Marksman ... Jeff Keller <-- Would become André April 1989 (Replacing Cris) -- Apparently also Phantom in May 94
Princess (Usually also Christine u/s) ... Rebecca Luker <-- Becomes Christine March 1989
Don Attilio/ Passarino ... George Lee Andrews <-- Becomes Firmin May 1990 (and then André in the switch)

That's just the OBC. Some other notable names I came across in skimming the lists:

(I blabbed a lot, so I've picked out the swings/princesses/similar that went on to the leads and left everything else under a cut)

*Laurie Gayle Stephenson became a swing in 5/93. I'm pretty sure she's played Christine. -- YES I'M RIGHT SHE DID
*Brad Little was a swing in 3/94 and he's been Phantom... That surprises me. He's also been Raoul.
*Kimilee Bryant was Princess around 94, she's been Christine
*Gary Mauer became a swing in 7/95. He's been Raoul and Phantom.
*Melissa Dye became Princess in 8/95. She'd be a Toronto Christine around the time Paul Stanley was in the show.
*Rebecca Pitcher became Princess in 2/98, she'd later be Christine
*Jim Weitzer became a swing in 7/98 -- he'd later play Raoul.
*Elizabeth Southard started as Princess in 7/99. She'd later play Christine on tour among other places.
*Marie Danvers started as Princess in 12/99. She'd later play Christine (she replaced Southard, here, and it's a little ironic because she and Southard were Christine/alt on tour at the same time while Southard's husband Gary Mauer played Phantom, and at the time this princess switching was going on Gary was playing Raoul)

( More... )

*Special mention to James Romick because I hadn't realized he's been a swing for so. many. years. He got to represent Phantom at the Broadway's Back concert.